It’s the end of the month again, time to join Kate and Crew over at Gardening Without Skills to hang out your dirty plant laundry. Who’d you kill?

Gratefully I don’t have too much death and destruction to talk about this month.

These guys are in critical condition and the outlook is bleak.

Some little bug has been munching on the turnip green leaves all the way down to the stems. I think I’m going to leave the plants in the ground, though, for two reasons. One, just to see if the bottoms will still grow without a lot of top growth and, two, maybe the bugs will be happy with the turnip greens and leave the other stuff alone.

Marigolds are supposed to repel insects, right? Not this one.

The bugs ate every single leaf and bud of this marigold overnight. The day after I transplanted one of the bush bean all the leaves were gone. What I’ve been doing (when I remember anyway) is putting collars around the newly transplanted seedings, and we’ll see what happens.

Now, the jury is out on the last yellow squash plant. We had a little accident. I was adjusting the shop lights and it slipped from my grip and fell right on top of the squash plant.

May 31, 2010_broken squash

The botanical equivalent of a broken neck. We need a doctor in the house!! In comes Dr. Cheryl, Plant Medicine Woman.

05-09-10_Squash after surgery

The fracture was set and immobilized and here’s the patient today.

05-31-10_Squash after surgery

Not growing a whole lot (probably because it’s still in this cup waiting for me to figure out where to plant it), but it’s not dead yet. Maybe she’ll be in next month’s edition of Garden Blogger’s Death Day.

Okay. I know it’s May 2010, not April 2010, but what I don’t know is how I missed Gardening Without Skill’s Garden Blogger’s Death Day, the place where you get a chance to commiserate with others who have also had foliar follies.

As you can see here in this picture, we’ve had fallen soldiers in the old garden.

The two dead soldiers you see in the black pots are my hardy jasmine plants, which, as it turns out, weren’t so hardy. Last winter I brought them in the house for the winter because I wasn’t sure if they were hardy. But this winter when I found the plant label and it said they were hardy, they stayed in the garage near the window. I don’t want to say never trust plant labels, but….

The jasmine had more Comrades that met the same fate and didn’t make it through the winter. All the overturned pots at one time had healthy happy plants in them, but they are with us no more.

And this one (the rose near the stairs)…

…the part of the rose that I paid for is dead. The fact that the root stock is still alive is of no consequence. This one goes on the death roll too. After I dug it up I had a little more respect for that root stock. It was growing despite the fact that there were no feeder roots and the roots that were left were starting to rot.

Other than the occasional accidental seedling decapitation or the strong winds blowing a styrofoam container full of potted seedlings off the porch railing, things around here are doing fairly well. (Sorry, no picture. Had to save the babies).

Today is Garden Blogger’s Death Day with Kate and Crew over at Gardening Without Skills. Unfortunately, or maybe fortunately, I don’t have any deaths to post about. Thought I was going to for a minute.

I like to train my tomatoes to a single stem, but I figured this year I’d try letting one grow the way it wanted to grow. After it sent out three branches, I couldn’t handle it any more, and I started pinching out all the suckers again. Well, right in front of the tomato was the four borage plants (four in one square foot). They were shading the tomato, and since I like to eat tomatoes more than I care for the taste of the borage leaves, I decided to pull the borage plants up. When I got to the biggest one, I bent down and started pulling. I was thinking as I was pulling it that, gee, this one has deeper roots than the other three. Maybe that’s why it’s bigger than they are. As soon as I pulled it out of the ground, I realized that it was the tomato plant…the tomato plant loaded with little tomatoes. I stuck it back in the ground and watered it …and watered it…and watered it.

Oh, wait a minute. I just thought of something. Let me go out and take a picture.

That “watered…and watered…and watered” reminded me that I forgot to water this:

These are some lettuce plants I transplanced and stuck in the shade in anticipation of the weather warming up. I noticed the plants were starting to bolt, and then I kinda forgot about them. They died due to my negligence. Call the Plant Police. I’m guilty of neglect. Throw me in jail and throw away the key.

Maybe I can get time served since I’m taking good care of the tomatoes’ siblings and their cousins, the cucumbers.

We’re saddened to have to announce that The Peas have passed on. The Peas started life under trying circumstances, but through it all they persevered. It is said, “That which does not kill you makes you stronger,” and despite being exposed to snow and freezing winds and even a hail storm, The Peas grew strong and tall.

However, looks can be deceiving. In recent times, The Peas had stopped producing their beautiful blooms. The plant was in a virtual coma and the outlook for The Peas to recover and start producing proflic pods of succulent snow peas or snap peas was bleak. The hot weather had taken its toll on the poor Peas. So, on June 21, 2009 the decision was made to harvest the last few pods that The Peas had to give of themselves, and the plug was pulled.

The Peas will live on, however. The bodies were donated to the compost pile. In a little while, the spirit of The Peas will be scattered throughout the whole garden…the circle of life continues.

(OR)

I get a whole lot more string beans per plant compared to peas, so out they went so I can plant some more beans.